transcription puppy - The Ultimate Guide to Transcription Services for Businesses

How Do Transcription Services Work?

Transcription services deliver speech to text. Most commonly, this is through digital audio files. But, video to text services are common. A few services provide specialist in-field note takers or stenographers that will come to you and transcribe events as they happen.

On the face of it, transcription puppy services are simple and straightforward. You find the best rate online, create an account, send in your recording and download a text transcript. There are, however, important distinctions between the types of transcripts you will receive and why certain services cost more than others.

Are All Transcription Services the Same?

No, they are not. The most obvious difference is quality or usefulness and cost. This can range from automated transcription software services with free ‘basic’ options, to human-based services with fees over £2 per minute of recorded audio. Fundamentally, these are different products that represent two distinct categories within transcription services.

Transcription Services vs. Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) Software (Speech to Text)

Human transcription puppy services produce accurate transcripts that you can count on — automated speech to text software does not. For an ‘ideal’ and high-quality recording, the difference can be slight. However, independent comparisons demonstrate that audio to text software transcription services struggle to hit accuracy rates above 80% under any circumstances. That number can decline to as little as 3% accuracy for complex audio with multiple speakers and poor sound quality. Even at the 80% level, it is painstaking to correct the errors!

Reasons You Should Use Human Transcription Services

Human transcription services consistently hit accuracy rates above 99%, even when dealing with poor audio quality, multiple speakers and complex language. If you are willing to pay for it, even better outcomes can be guaranteed. Most human transcription services will remove ‘ums’, false starts and stutters to create a smoother reading experience without damaging meaning. Using transcription services allows for customised outcomes and the transcription of audio files that would be indecipherable for software.

Audio quality, multiple speakers, the speed at which individuals are speaking, accents, background noise and the complexity of language all impact automated transcription quality. For human transcribers, these complications will slow down the process and can drive up costs, but a quality outcome will be delivered. For speech to text software, one or more of these complications can create nearly unintelligible outcomes. Fundamentally, you will need to review and edit any transcription made using an automated service.